The displacement situation in Burma is becoming increasingly acute. There are now an estimated 3.7 million internally displaced people, while support is dwindling. There was never a great deal of international support for internally displaced people’s camps because international aid either stops at the border or operates only with the junta’s permission in junta-controlled areas. Now the number of camps and IDPs is rising, the needs are greater, and the support is shrinking.
Camps in resistance-controlled areas are supported through the civilian governments, which have very low incomes. They also receive relatively small amounts of sporadic aid from private individuals, churches, and some NGOs inside Burma, which are finding it increasingly difficult to remain in operation.
In Pekhon Diocese alone, on the Shan side of the Karenni State border, there are 83 IDP camps. As fighting is intensifying in Pekhon and Mobye, IDPs are fleeing to the last town in Burma on the Thai border. The local priest who made the arduous journey with his flock explained that it took them 28 days to walk to their present location.
Their camp has no source of water, so water has to be purchased, but of course IDPs generally have no jobs and no money. The camp had only one truck and a few motorcycles and was located about a 45-minute drive from town.
“We use it to take people to the hospital, and we also organize shopping once a week.” Father told me that as many inhabitants as could fit would pile into the back of the truck and drive to town to purchase whatever necessities they could afford.
It took almost a year of negotiations to obtain land to grow food for the camp, and now that planting has begun, the camp is scheduled to move again in just three months as the front line shifts and the bombs land closer.
Not only does the move mean that the more than 900 camp inhabitants will have their lives upended again, but it also means that after this move, there is no place left to go. Unless the resistance can recapture territory and shift the front line further out, most of the IDPs from the area will be clustered in one location, trapped between the Burma army and the border.
In the face of war and repeated displacement, the normalcy of camp life is both surprising and encouraging. Although the adults generally do not have jobs, the camp’s 229 children attend school from preschool through kindergarten and high school. The classrooms were bamboo-frame buildings with plastic tarps for walls and ceilings. However, just like in schools anywhere else in the world, the students sat on benches at long tables made of bamboo, and each classroom had a whiteboard.
The kindergarten had 28 children, and despite an acute lack of resources, they were already learning their ABCs and 123s in English, Burmese, and Karenni. The two kindergarten teachers worked patiently with the children each day, despite not receiving a salary. The preschool had even fewer amenities, not even crayons or paper for the children. It was just a bamboo hut with a few mats on the floor for children to crawl and play on. The teachers had no whiteboard and instead wrote on pieces of old brown cardboard attached to the wall.
At lunchtime, the teachers helped the children wash their hands at the small reservoir tank in front of the classroom, then gave the students the lunch boxes their parents had prepared for them. “We can’t afford to give the children lunch,” lamented the Father. “I hope if we can find donors, next year we can.” He walked around encouraging the children and making them laugh as he inspected the contents of their lunch boxes. “You see,” he began in English, “mostly just rice.” He pointed at a few of the boxes, saying, “That one has a little vegetables. That one has curry.” We were both pleasantly surprised that one of the children had a bit of chicken in his lunch.
Father took me around to the elementary school, where he introduced me to a family with an elderly grandmother. “We had to carry her the whole way from Pekhon,” he said, remembering the difficult trek. Crossing a wide place in the trail, he lamented, “We do not have a good place for the children to play football.”
The next hut we visited, called the study hall, had long tables and benches, and solar collectors and batteries to provide a little light at night because many of the students had no light in their families’ homes.
On one of the support posts was a long list of rules written in Burmese. “Those who come to study here have to follow these rules,” Father said, sternly.
The camp may have lacked food and water, but they were determined to see to it that the children received an education.
The first grade was the largest class, with 31 students. The youngest was five years old, but the oldest was 16. “They never had the right time for proper school,” said Father. “We had to run, run, run for five years now.”
The education system was so disrupted in Burma, particularly in resistance-controlled areas, that it was not uncommon to see students with age spans of six years in a single grade. Grade 5 had 26 students, but the older grades seemed to have far fewer.
This was partly because students have not caught up yet and remain in lower grades, and partly because when they reach their older teens they may drop out of school rather than sit with small children, or they may join the revolution and go to the front lines. Some leave in search of work in the mines. Many go to Thailand and try to get jobs as laborers so they can send money back to their families in the camps.
When he introduced me to the grade 8 teacher, Father explained that she had just had a baby. We later visited the teachers’ office, a bamboo structure with a small pile of mildewed books, where another teacher was caring for the baby. Father smiled, recounting the teacher’s dedication. “The baby is only a month old, but where her mother is needed, she will go. So she said, ‘Put the baby in the office while I teach.’”
As we left the teachers’ office, Father pointed at a bamboo box attached to the outside wall next to the door. “That’s the suggestion box. Anything the people think we should try to improve they can write on a paper and put in the box.” Father laughed again. “But it is usually empty.”
The problems and needs in the camp were so great that asking for help through the suggestion box was not going to improve the situation.
In the camps there are always some families that do better than others, either because they are receiving support from abroad or because they have a small business. These two are probably related, in that only those with outside support can afford to start a business. Even so, there are always a few families running small shops selling soap, toothpaste, snacks, and other basics.
There was a family running a charging business where camp residents can charge their phones for a small amount of money, and there was the Starlink shop where people can get online for a few pennies an hour. One family showed me the still where they made traditional wine.
Father said that the new place they will be moving to is in the forest. This means they will have to clear the land again, build homes, cut trails, and eventually clear land for farming. The school, the Starlink shop, the church, and the still will all have to be rebuilt from scratch.
It was a difficult decision to make, but Father said, “We cannot stay here any longer. Now we are worried about the fighting.” So there was really no option apart from leaving. However, Father did not like the idea of moving to the new place either. “Now I do not feel sure to go there anymore because if the military is approaching, if they can come here… they will follow us.”
Father’s concern was justified. The next move would be the last. If the junta’s troops break through the lines and flood into the area, past experience shows that many civilians will be arrested, tortured, or killed. Homes will be ransacked and burned, girls will be raped, men will be forced to work as porters, and boys will be conscripted into the junta’s army.
“That’s why we have no place, nowhere to go,” said Father. “All of us are ready. We are ready to escape to another place.”
The problem now is that there is no place left to escape to.
Antonio Graceffo is an economist and China expert who has reported extensively on Burma.
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